Now the madness that is August 2013's repertory screening schedule truly, fully, madly begins.

Nitrate Stock is pleased to introduce this new feature, which asks friends, readers and fellow film aficionados to provide their choice for the month's most unmissable flick.

The day in rep screenings begins at Film Forum with the final opportunity to catch Rene Clair's LE BEAUTE DU DIABLE, the auteur's customarily stylish take on the Faust legend, starring Gallic great Michel Simon as both the alchemist talked into history's worst deal and the dealmaker himself, Beelzebub M. Pitchfork. As it already stole my Pick not just two days ago I summarily deny and cast it out. The power of da rules compels me.

The Film Forum gets the day in classic screenings going with Rene Clair's LE BEAUTE DU DIABLE and D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE. Both excellent choices, the former a late-innings fantasy classic from a legend of French filmmaking, the latter a monumentally influential work from perhaps American cinema's most important pioneer.

For some unexplained reason the programmers at the various rep houses that serve our movie-mad metropolis have chosen this year and this month to flat-out lose their collective cotton-pickin' minds. How else to explain this month's rep calendar, which is so jam-packed with with classic screenings it threatened at times during its construction to buckle and break under the burden. Film Forum, Moving Image and Lincoln Center all boast massive retrospectives dedicated to specific genres, studios and talent.

Rene Clair's LE BEAUTE DU DIABLE, the frogteur's take on the Faust legend, begins a one-week run at the Film Forum this afternoon. Gerard Philipe essays the role of the world's oldest dealmaker, Mephistopheles himself, who seduces the well-intentioned alchemist, played by the legendary Michel Simon, into the worst contract of all time. Until A-Rod met the Steinbrenners, that is.

SUMMER!!! SLOW THE HELL DOWN ALREADY!!!

Hello Stockahz and welcome to August 2013. I'm not any happier about this season's swift pace than you, so let's just get to the wonderful classic screenings we can indulge in this warm and sunny day and not even think about January, my cursed foe. There's not a lot going on concerning rep cinema today, but three vastly different types of musical vie for your attention.

Joseph Losey's THE SERVANT, the wittily penned psychological drama from the typewriter of one Harold Pinter, is nearly at the end of its weeklong booking at Film Forum. Dirk Bogarde's valet provides
a smoothly run household initially and a reversal of authority ultimately, as James Fox's wealthy Londoner's increasing dependence upon said footman turns to identity erosion. Tricky stuff, but not my Pick.

The Nitehawk Cinema in beautiful bustling B-Burg gets the day in rep cinema going with a brunchtime screening of D. W. Griffith's BROKEN BLOSSOMS. Lillian Gish's abused waif is first protected and then avenged by Richard Barthelmess' Chinese shopkeeper. Yeah, it falls short of cleansing David Wark's rascist rep, but considering it was made in 1919 cut the man some slack. I recommend you pair this flick with the Nitehawk's excellent Egg White Quiche.

Joseph Losey's classic work of identity manipulation THE SERVANT gets a one-week booking at the Film Forum starting today. Harold Pinter's screenplay, a twisty paranoid study in class warfare, quietly eviscerates British gentility at its most stolid, which suits this Irish-American boy just fine. Take that Prince George!